4 Ways to Grow a Twitter Following That Matters

This article will show you four actionable steps you can take to improve your Twitter experience.

Why Twitter Is Not Just a Numbers Game

Many brands, businesses and marketers have already discovered how powerful Twitter is for finding and engaging their audience.

Its low cost, immediacy and viral nature make it a favorite tool for everyone from news organizations to celebrities to small businesses.

Yet when marketers jump on Twitter for the first time, they wonder why they don’t get an overwhelming response to their initial tweet. Soon they learn that they must develop a following.

They see others with followings of 500, 5,000 or 50,000 and they want some of that. So they start to Google “how to get more followers on Twitter” or falling for tweets like this one:

If it sounds too good to be true…

Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not too difficult to build a following on Twitter if you’re willing to partake in some shady, bad-karma tactics—from following and unfollowing people to creating hundreds of bogus accounts that follow you and retweet everything you say to buying followers on the black market.

But few if any of those followers will provide you any value for the time you put into Twitter.

So I’m also here to tell you that it’s not how many followers you have, but how many relevant followers you have. Having 20,000 followers who don’t respond to anything you share is equivalent to shouting from the top of the Empire State Building and claiming all of New York City as your audience.

Building a relevant Twitter following comes down to four core concepts:

Find and follow relevant people.

Tweet content that will be interesting to your target audience.

Engage with your audience.

Promote your Twitter account through other channels.

With that framework in place, here are some tips, tools and tactics to attract relevant followers on Twitter.

#1: Find and Follow Relevant People

Your audience is out there… Now, how to find them?

Start with a strong profile.

Because most people will check out your profile before following you, it’s important to put your house in order and present yourself in the most engaging way possible.

This includes:

Profile photo: Make sure you’re using a photo of your face for your personal account or a logo for your business account. Research has shown that people trust faces more that they’ve seen multiple times, which is why a photo of your smiling face works best.

Detailed bio: You’ve got 160 characters, so get creative! Let people know why they should be following you.

Location: Because so much of business is local these days, make sure you include your location as appropriate. It can be the make or break for follows.

Strong profiles increase your followers. Blue hair doesn't hurt.

Discover new people with third-party tools.

One of the first places to start your search for relevant people is at one of the many Twitter directories out there.

Karen James, a social media coach from the UK, likes Tweepi to check out people before she follows them. Karen Black, a digital marketer also from the UK, uses ManageFlitter to do bio searches, as well as keep an eye on her followers.

Use these tools to search for your own industry and the industries of your ideal customers.

Leverage other people’s Twitter lists.

A great source for new people to connect with is other people’s curated Twitter lists.

Whatever your interests are, you can find well-curated lists and subscribe to them.

Twitter users often create lists or subscribe to other people’s lists to improve their signal-to-noise ratio. As long as people make their lists public, you are free to subscribe to them, quickly getting access to dozens or hundreds of vetted Twitter users.

Some lists are more serious than others.

Use Twitter’s search functionality.

You can use Twitter’s search functionality to find relevant people and engage with them.

For example, let’s say you had a product or service for NASCAR fans. Start by doing a search on #nascar within Twitter.

Searching on #nascar will help you find passionate NASCAR fans whom you can then follow.

You could then join the conversation by @ (mentioning) them, answering their questions and otherwise engaging them.

If your business is more local, like a restaurant, you can find out who’s hungry and in driving distance.

Filter your search by geography to find local people on Twitter to follow.

You could then reach out to those starving denizens on Twitter and offer them a discount or free drink if they come in now and mention “Twitter” as they place their order.

#2: Tweet Interesting Stuff

Easier said than done, right?

How do you find interesting content? Here are some ideas.

Use Google Alerts.

Set up Google Alerts (or a similar service) to get daily email updates about all of the things that are of interest to your audience—from “vegan recipes” to “grilling product reviews”—and share them through Twitter.

Share media.

Photos and videos are a proven way to engage your audience. Use photos to share your activity or events so your business will get click-throughs and comments.

A real estate agent might share a video walkthrough of a new house and ask “what do you think?” A retail shop may share photos of some new additions to their display window. A travel agent might share pictures from a beach vacation and ask, “Are you ready for your getaway?”

Photos engage, especially if you tie them into a giveaway.

Talk to people, not at them.

Chances are, what is of interest to your audience is what they’re already talking about! Rather than trying to get the ball rolling, why not keep it rolling? See what your audience is talking about and engage them in that conversation. Ask questions, answer them, retweet and respond.

#3: Engage

People on Twitter who don’t talk to other people are significantly less engaging and less likely to get followers.

Just because someone didn’t immediately follow you back doesn’t mean that you can’t engage them. Check out their conversations and see if you can jump in with relevant comments, or retweet some of their links.

Also, being part of conversations will get you in front of more people, increasing your chances of being followed.

Get involved with #chats.

Anyone can start a chat on Twitter by using a hashtag. You can find a long list of chats in this Google doc, along with days and times.

By joining the conversation at appropriate chats, you can quickly build your relevant followers… Assuming you have something valuable to add!

If you're looking to engage bloggers, you could chime in at the #BWEChat.

Schedule chats to reach a wider audience.

While there are many marketers who hate scheduled tweets—I’m looking at you, Unmarketer—many others embrace the tactic.

Using a tool like HootSuite or Buffer, you can schedule out a day’s, week’s or month’s worth of tweets. I would recommend you use a scheduling tool to supplementyour regular tweets rather than replacing them.

If you’re going to schedule your tweets, try to be aware of when people respond to anything you share. When people respond to your tweets and you’re not there to respond to them, they’re less likely to engage you in the future.

#4: Promote Your Twitter Account Through Other Channels

Leverage the following you’ve built elsewhere by promoting your Twitter account.

Talk up Twitter at your website, blog and through email.

At flyte, we include our Twitter handles—with clickable links—next to all of our bios. We also include links to our Twitter handles from all appropriate blog posts.

People can follow you without having to leave the page they're on.

You can also include a “follow me on Twitter” call to action in your email signature file, email newsletter and all other correspondence.

Leverage your social media outposts.

Likewise, include links (and calls to action) on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube.

You may be tempted to sync all of your updates and tweets together using a tool like Ping.fm, HootSuite or TweetDeck. While there’s nothing wrong with this, use this technique judiciously.

Certain platforms may not be as “chatty” as Twitter, and if we’re already connected on LinkedIn and you’re syncing all of your tweets and LinkedIn updates, what’s the value of getting the same content on Twitter?

Get more visibility with a Paper.li newspaper.

Paper.li is a free service that allows you to create “newspapers” out of your Twitter feed (as well as some integration of Facebook and Google+).

Your daily paper.li can pull from the people you follow, your lists, or specific keywords or hashtags you include. Paper.li can also tweet out your daily paper, including which people contributed your “top stories.”

I’ve found that these tweets often get retweets from the people mentioned, and suddenly they’re sharing your content with their network, elevating your brand.

Promoting the people you're following encourages more follow-backs and engagement.

In this video you can see how to create your own paper.li daily:

One caveat: I no longer recommend including hashtags to pull in new people to your paper.li. Turns out some disreputable people might be using the same hashtags, populating your paper.li with spam.

So how do you bring in fresh content from new people to your paper.li daily? Here’s what I did: find people you respect and look at the targeted lists they’ve created. Then you can include their curated lists to help round out your paper.

Using others' lists can greatly improve your own paper!

Now It’s Your Turn!

What do you think? What tips, tools or tactics have you been using to build your own relevant Twitter following? Share something in the comments box below and include your Twitter handle and you’ll be sure to pick up a few new followers!

Rich is president of flyte new media, podcasts at The Marketing Agents, and founded The Agents of Change conference. He helps small businesses succeed through search, social & mobile marketing. Other posts byRich Brooks »

I’ve been wondering about the same content across social media platforms thing. Several people have complained to me about it so I’ve turned it off. I use twitter for specific and share-able content. Thanks for this post!

Evan VanDerwerker

Great advice, Rich. I definitely find “engaging” to be the most effective way to gain quality followers. Whether it be retweeting interesting posts, or referencing a post written by someone you follow, quick mentions are a great way to get a conversation going.

I have actually avoided Twitter for a long time because I didn’t want to bother competing for numbers in order to prove my worth in the Twitterspere. Now, I’m quite proud of my 750 or so followers because they are actual people that are involved in one way or another. I’d rather grow it the right way!

GREAT article! Lots of actionable insights and some new tactics at building an engaged Twitter following. Thanks Rich for the post.

http://twitter.com/MikeGRad6 MikeGRad6

Fantastic blog with great tips for users starting out or people looking to take their engagement up a notch or five. Gaining relevant Twitter followers is a slow burn at first but over time as you add your voice and curate relevant content your base will grow. Thanks for sharing your tips.

Michael Girard Community Engagement, Radian6

Diane Adler

Great tips – and we always RT anyone who mentions us as a “top story from” on paper.li. Participating in relevant chats have been great for getting “mentions.”

http://www.webpresence.tv Lee Jackson

Great tips! We’ve found that by adding out Twitter stream to our Facebook ‘welcome’ page you can gain a decent number of qualified followers.

http://www.facebook.com/mikedibos Mike Dibos

Great analogy on shouting from the top of the Empire State Building! Clever use for restaurants to find out who’s hungry in their area too.

Mike

http://daviddoolin.com/ Dave Doolin

I turned off cross-posting content as well. I think it could work for people who are careful to keep in mind which accounts are connected, why the connection exists, and what serves those accounts best.

http://twitter.com/jactherat Jackie S

I liked the part about real followers and engagement. Thanks, this is useful and thoughtful. Cheers

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

I’m nothing if not simple!

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Thanks, Veronica! Hope you found it helpful today.

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

I feel it’s a balancing act. Some messages work across multiple platforms, some need to be tweaked, and still others will only work on a specific channel.

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

I think that’s sound advice, Dave.

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Engaging can be the most challenging part of a Twitter strategy, but it pays off in the long run.

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Sounds like you’re doing it right!

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Thanks! Look forward to seeing your tweets!

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Agreed. Slow and steady is often the best approach.

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Cool!

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Thanks! Obviously that restaurant tip can be repurposed for many other industries.

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Thanks, jackie!

http://twitter.com/cole_creative David Cole

very useful, engaging and easy to understand tips. thank you Rich

http://twitter.com/cole_creative David Cole

Hi Dani, me too. I use Facebook and Twitter quite differently.

http://twitter.com/JenLovisa Jenny Jobring ツ

Brilliant article!!

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Glad to hear it David!

Deb Ng

Thanks for including a screen shot of #BWEChat, Rich. Having a Twitter chat not only helped us grow our Twitter following, and spread the word about BlogWorld, but it did something even more important. It turned us from a Twitter feed into a community. We have lots of regulars and even some irregulars and they all bring something of value to the table. In fact, I might go out on a limb to say the weekly Twitter chat has been our top community building tool this year.

Thanks again, Rich.

http://twitter.com/seanobyrne Sean O’Byrne

So true…people especially businesses entering the twittersphere can get so blinded by the arms race they forget the point of twitter is to engage, discuss, debate and connect etc. It’s not a numbers game at all….since I calmed down about gaining new followers and just started enjoying it I’ve seen a steady increase in my daily number of followers.

http://twitter.com/TashWord Tash Hughes

Always good to see quality promoted over number of followers in twitter – not only is that the more important focus, but it increases the odds of only seeing worthwhile tweets

I didn’t know about doing searches for location like you used in that restaurant example – very cool, thanks.

The other thing I have done is use a hashtag from a webinar to share insights I gain whilst listening – it gives information obviously but also gets exposure to others listening to the same webinar as we obviously have some similar interests – the those interactions can really help the learning and find new people on Twitter.

http://www.endlessrangemarketing.com/ Hilary St Jonn

This is such a perfect Twitter Marketing How To post! Thanks!

Amara

Thanks so much for sharing! As a college student interested in marketing, I know there is so much out there but so little taught in classes. Very interesting stuff.

http://www.speakinglatino.com/ Jared

I just checked out WeFollow, which looks like a great site. However, when I searched the topic SPANISH and began looking into detail to some of the top users, it quickly became obvious that WeFollow still needs to improve its algorithm significantly.

One of the top 5 ranked users hasn’t tweeted since June 2011, that’s about 10 months ago. Another two of the top fifteen haven’t tweeted since October (at least 5 months ago) and February (2 months ago).

If the WeFollow creators can fix the algorithm to take into account recent activity it would be a great tool.

Also, I just found that the reference to the Tweepie software in #1 should read Tweepi with the E. The current link takes you to an unused domain.

Great post and loved the shares. Good examples and easily understandable. Thanks for the share…

http://profile.yahoo.com/TIZQ2EUROS26R6Q5RVUA7OXCOA Sachin Rao

tweepie is for sale? the link doesn’t work!

http://twitter.com/SeleanaHobbs Seleana Hobbs

Rich, very nice article. I agree with the following being relevant because otherwise, you have a bunch of numbers but no real following that will ever get you anywhere. Thanks also for those retro posts you placed in the article. I will check those out as well.

Mike

Hi Rich, a plethora of easy to understand points to take on board. Thank you.

http://www.affilorama.com/blog Rod Tolentino

Awesome post! Tweeting like a boss and very useful tips here! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

http://www.nebulasdesign.com/ Nebulas Website Design

A very very in formative article as usual thank you.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=544480721 Sarah Ambler

Hi, great post, really helpful!

Your link for Tweepi doesn’t work though it’s http://tweepi.com/ and to follow Karen James it’s @karenjpa:twitter :).

http://paper.li Paper.li

Rich,

Thanks for mentioning Paper.li as a way to increase a targeted Twitter following. It is so true that it is quality, not quantity, that brings the most gratifying connections and engagement.

I will be sure to share your advice with our community.- Kelly

http://twitter.com/SnowdonAwardSch Snowdon Award Scheme

We are a small charity at the beginning of our tentative launch into socia media. Thank you for this focus and the suggested tools. Definitely feel better equipped to carve our identity into the vast Twitter arena. hooorah & thanks!

http://www.sensibleweb.co.uk/ Sme

So much useful informtaion and advice on one article – thank you.

Dave Kavanagh

I think this Blog is great,some great tips.

http://kljsocialmedia.com/ Karen James

Many thanks for the mention Rich However the link to Tweepi goes to the wrong page … it should be tweepi.com (not tweepie). Great post though. Karen

http://kljsocialmedia.com/ Karen James

And loving the forum!

http://tonymena.net/ Tony Mena

One of the best articles I’ve read on growing followers. I’ll go as far as saying your information is as good as some of what is being sold. I’m anxious to read your other 2 articles on tweeting. I’ve gotten a lot out of being being a subscriber. Great job.

https://twitter.com/#!/SallyNowroozi Sally Nowroozi

Really good article. Nice and concise yet meaningful. Thank you for sharing this.

http://www.MikeWilliamsPro.com/ Mike Williams

I agree, I thought about this recently as while. I put myself in their shoes and it does sound annoying. So , i am stopped as well. Some people just make the times different, but I said what the heck there is so much to share anyway.

http://www.MikeWilliamsPro.com/ Mike Williams

Agreed, small and relevant is the key.

http://twitter.com/chicogal1 Pam Stoesser

Excellent info…clear and relevant..thx much!

http://kljsocialmedia.com/ Karen James

thanks for pointing that out Sarah

http://www.sharonsnowdon.com/ Sharon

Wow, this is an incredibly useful article – thank you. My twitter account is fairly new but I got some great advice here about how to connect with others in my industry.

Www.higginscartoons.com

Really helpful, am off to try out some your advice. Many thanks! Higgins

About the use of hashtags for paper.li: Why would even “unscrupulous people” even figure in the equation?

If you have even tweeted anything semi-regularly at all, you should have known that totally innocuous uses of entirely valid hashtags can interact badly with paper.li. What you think as an entirely relevant tweet with an appropriate hashtag can get picked up by paper.li, and because of the mismatch between tweets being basically text and paper.li’s being centred essentially around images, your relevant comment now looks like spam.

Unless there’s some proof, I strongly doubt most of the “unscrupulous people” mentioned are in fact unscrupulous. They are probably normal people, using hashtags correctly but have their tweets unfortunately picked up by a random paper.li.

If anything, I’d say paper.li is discouraging the use of hashtags.

http://www.davidbcrowley.com/ David Crowley

Good tips! I wrote on this subject this week, making some similar points. I like your emphasis on finding relevant people to follow. Nice idea to look at other’s lists to find good people to connect with; I tend to focus more on my own lists as a way to find good content, I should also look more for other’s lists.

http://www.i95dev.com/ Victor Achilles

I have found success with Finding & Following relevant people. I highly recommend people to follow this step instead of subscribing to services which would follow unneeded audience.

http://www.ryanmickley.com Ryan Mickley

I started using paper.li as a result of this blog and I absolutely love it. This changes everything. I feel like I am able to offer real value to my audience by providing a quality product. Incredible. Thank you!

Great post, look forward to testing out ” How to Grow Your Twitter Following with Paper.li” fully agree with engagement being a key factor. Too many followers now concentrate on the numbers and dont focus enough on engagement and interaction. Developing a conversation with peers & people in your interest group will see natrual organic growth which in the long term will lead to higher levels of trust and in turn help your business acheive the ROI its looking for.

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

No worries! I’ve enjoyed the #BWEChats I’ve been part of.

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Tash, great points, especially the hashtaggs about webinars (or conferences, for that matter.)

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Amara, if you ever want to connect me with your marketing/advertising prof, just let me know!

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Thanks for the heads up, Jared. I gave a heads up to the editor. Sorry about the bad link!

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Working on that broken link! Thanks.

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Glad you enjoyed them!

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Thanks, Tony! I’ve made most of the mistakes out there in trying to build a relevant following, so I figure I’ll share what I’ve learned!

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Quality can lead to quantity, but rarely is the opposite true.

http://www.speakinglatino.com/ Jared

No problem, happens to us all.

http://twitter.com/therichbrooks Rich Brooks

Ambrose,

I can share my story if you like. In building a following for my @AgentConference:twitter account I started a paper.li account and included #mobile among other hashtags to immediately pull in, regardless of whether I was following someone or not.

However, within a few days, a porn account came up using the #mobile hashtag, which got me some negative feedback as people had been subscribing to the paper for mobile advice, not for porn.

I have since then stopped using the hashtags to pull in content, because there’s too much risk and little reward.

I’d call that person unscrupulous, as they were using the hashtag to appear in random, unrelated searches and papers.

This post mirrors the Chris Brogan post on “Earning Attention”. So many users are all too concerned with increasing their number of likes without taking into consideration the type of followers that they have. It’s important to have followers that are just as passionate as you are about your cause and mission. No matter how short the tweets are it is important to make them interesting. The most crucial tip that I’ve taken away from this post is to find and follow relevant people.

This post really is content Rich! Sorry, couldn’t resist. I’ve been tweeting on behalf of our company @smileymonroeltd for just over 2 months, so I’ve reached the point where I needed to take a step back and assess. So, thanks to @BenjaminsTweets for sharing a link to your post. I’ll be making a few changes and definately checking out some of the websites you mention. Love the sound of Paper.li – I’ve actually been thinking about how to do something else with my Tweets, prompted by viewing my Recent images. Really looking forward to using Twitter for the first time and Facebook at an industry exhibition we’re showing at in the summer, here in the UK. Have you any advice on walking the line between personal interests and business interests when Tweeting on behalf of one’s company? I try to get some humour in there and personality, but trying to keep a consistent ‘voice’ that runs through our marketing. I guess I could run my own personal Twitter account alongside? This would allow me to fully indulge in my love of all things design, #FontSunday and Arsenal FC! And have conversations with friends which perhaps wouldn’t sit well in one’s business Tweets. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to share your insights. And you never know, I might even work out how to embed my Twitter handle in my LinkedIn page!

MidlifeRoadTrip

GREAT tips to building a solid foundation of Twitter followers with depth & purpose!!!

Thanks for this useful article, I’ve been on Twitter for a while now but i’m still learning new ways to make the most out of it! Reading this has been really helpful and i’m going to start learning how to use paper.li right now!

This tip is useless because for example WeFollow is dead for a very long time. If you check you can see that most of the profiles are not updated, and lots of people have less followers than they have in reality.

I’m pretty active on my twitter account, and apply many of the tips you give in this article but I didn’t know about paper.li. Thanks for the video with the explanation. I’ll definitely open my paper.li account.

I’m pretty active on my twitter account, and apply many of the tips you give in this article but I didn’t know about paper.li. Thanks for the video with the explanation. I’ll definitely open my paper.li account.

http://www.jacobking.com/ Jacob King

This is quite the baller post Rich. Its like an SEO site having some impressive rankings to back things up, the social numbers on here are sick.

I found that I gain more followers by tweeting interesting content for my niche.

Also in the moment tweets worked as well. Thank you for an awesome post, I think I will start using Twellow.

Rena Pearl

Thank you. Very informative, I like it! It all needs focus, dedication and time. Good point about being selective on who to follow etc., Must admit, I often feel obliged to follow people who follow me, even though I cannot see a reason.

http://candidcastle.com/ RonaldWahome

Thanks to everyone behind this website. Just discovered it and I feel like I discovered gold.

I have been using BufferApp to schedule my twitter tweets. Great article.

http://www.theyogimovement.com/ Monica Stone

Thanks so much for this! I was looking into paper.li to build awareness and brand to my blog, but also to inform others of important topics easily. I was wondering if Paper.li is more of a marketing tool. I am assuming it uses no follow links and the content is not unique. Am I correct or way off?

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